


Besieged

by missyvortexdv (Purpleyin), Purpleyin



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Episode: s01e20 The Siege (2), F/M, Guilt, Sort of Poetry, Zelenka POV, other pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 10:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13738932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purpleyin/pseuds/missyvortexdv, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purpleyin/pseuds/Purpleyin
Summary: Tag for the Siege Part 2 McKay angst, a different PoV and light McKay/Weir.





	Besieged

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Seige Part 2
> 
> Originally posted elsewhere in 2005. Not betaread, apologies for any mistakes. 
> 
> Response to the weirmckayship other PoV challenge - view on McKay but also some McKay/Weir there.

He watches her, and I watch him.  
He hasn't slept for a week almost, not properly.  
He doesn't say so, minimal complaint, because to be honest this is not the time.

She watches nothing, looking out and concentrating on listening.  
She's hopeful possibly, wishing Major Sheppard a safe journey; praying he might return.  
Rodney stands by, waiting for a signal, waiting for some sign.

He doesn't say anything of himself, though if you want to you can see it in his sagging shoulders and bloodshot eyes; in the way he does not snap back at us quite so readily. He runs on borrowed time, on the life of others that are dependant on him.

He focuses on giving everything to everyone – placing their fate on his genius, that he will find the answers to solve it all – ironic for are we not in the city of Atlantis. The place of Atlas, the son of a God, who took the weight of the world on his shoulders. I can almost imagine now that he is that legendary man, that his egotistical blathering could be bitterly true. He is a better man than he sees.

He pretends not to care.  
Not a single tear shed for our colleagues, but they are there, his pride stopping their tide.  
He acts as if this were just another day in his abnormal job, taking time to complain about how typical it is of the military to come in, stuff it up and leave it to us ultimately.  
But it is bravado, talk to take his mind off reality. So he perhaps will not think as I do, of Peter, or now of those who do not answer. Aiden, Teyla, John...

It feels like the end of the world to me. My body exhausted but kept awake by Carson's drugs, as is he. Yet he is more alert than I, for there is more to it I feel. I slump into a seat whilst he stands, forever waiting, eyes not taken off her figure for more than a few seconds. They dance around, all his spirit in them shining out, draining by the second as we all grow weary of this war.

Maybe it is only now I see he is always going, never stops talking, or moving his hands, tapping his feet – annoying us somehow; but really he is pacing, underneath he is waiting. Wanting to know something.

He knows science, he knows probability, but he does not know how things will go – he is as much at the whim of the gods as we are. And he does not know if what he knows is enough, if he will succeed and save us.  
He can not tell what we think, if we believe in him and if we forgive him for any failings.

Because it does not look good by any means, whatever he has done to change the history of the day. And because he confided in me that that ZPM was very nearly ours, in his own hands and ripped away. I close my eyes, rubbing them and sighing. Who could say how things may have been if he had not admitted to that woman our true nature but I know he blames himself for many things.

He is waiting.  
For a miracle delivered by who knows who; no one he believes in.  
It might be of his making, condemning two men because there was not time to make it work the way we want.  
He is waiting, for death, for the order. For Elizabeth to turn on him and send him off to fix it all, to pay for his mistakes.

I know he waits for her. That if she would, if she does, that he will not see the sorrow on her face or feel her hand reaching out to him as he leaves steadily. I know he would walk away to the jumper bay, never looking back to see her goodbye. She would never say such a thing but it would be there. And he would miss it completely, not looking into her eyes, unable to meet the measure of a man she thinks him to be.

We are all here, all free together. We walked through the gate as a group and if we die it is as a family. But he does not understand, that we can not hold it against him. No one would condemn him for this, least of all her.

I shake my head, clasping it in my hands. It is almost funny. He waits for her but he will not see there is no need. He stands by her throughout the silence, waiting.

He is there but not; closed off, blind to others, seeing a dark reflection of reality, tainted by his guilt.  
He is close, yet out of reach.


End file.
